Customer Reviews

Physical Chemistry

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Let me begin by saying - I love chemistry. I love math. I'm a total nerd. But this book turned me off to both. Taking a year of physical chemistry is hard - but this book makes it even harder. This is the first year my professors have used this book, and I think it will be their last.

The key points aren't covered in detail. The math is overly complicated, and the problems don't hit the right points. I don't have a lot of P.Chem textbook knowledge, but there has to be something better out there.

I wouldn't recommend the text at all - but if you buy it, you ABSOLUTELY need the solutions manual.

I've used half of the book now. The layout is not very organized. I found the graphical representations useful.

ok, 2nd semester in work. I'd prefer to downgrade this rating to negative 5 if I could. This book has turned into a major disaster. It is so riddled with errors...the derivations are never right. Everytime something doesn't work out right it's because the book is wrong. flat out.

This book gets my strongest disapproval possible. Buying this book is throwing away your money. Thanks engel. Thanks for all those hours lost trying to figure out what mistake I had make working out the derivations in this book only to find the book was wrong all along.

I'm still a little bitter about the false advertising when I got it...re: spartan software student copy that wasn't included.

I used this book for my pchem courses and found it to be completely worthless. While it does focus on computational crap that's not very important the first time around. The quantum chapters are pretty poorly done, and well the thermo stuff is just boring. All in all, I found this text to be useless. The derivations include many errors, and often are presented before the text introduces what they're trying to derive thereby further confusing you. You're better off not buying this book, unless you need for class, and buying one of the more used books like Levine's or Macquarrie's.

This solution manual is a true waste of money/

First off there aren't even that many solutions, probably a couple per chapter.

Second, the solutions aren't really solutions, nothing is explained just a series of obscure steps and viola the solution.

Third, well, lets just say that this wouldn't be so bad if just the solution manual was crap, but the book is pure crap as well, can't say i have had a worst experience than this.

This is a horrible book to read and gain any insightful knowledge from other than superficial, basic knowledge. If I wasn't a Chem E and didn't have a great teacher then I'd be in a world of complete confusion. This book does little more than use magic to derive equations and uses inconsistent conventions. In addition, it seems to spend a lot of time on specific thermodynamic examples then using mass and energy balances: the very staple of thermodynamics.

This is by far the worst solutions manual I have ever used. Simple calculations are done wrong, incorrect data from the problem is used in calculations, and only a few selected problems are solved. Nothing is explained properly, and even when the solution does come out correctly (always a surprise), it's nearly impossible to follow the work to get there. Not worth the money or the waste of time and aggravation it will cause.

As a physics major who took this class for fun, I liked this textbook. Not overly mathematical and explained things to where I could easily understand them. I don't understand the negative reviews from most of the others. This book was clear and precise. The book seemed overly qualitative, but I always expect that in chemistry courses.

I took my p-chem courses using both Engel books and were it not for my teacher I would have been completely lost. I started out reading before every lecture like I do in every course, but found that it actually hampered the learning process and I was better off just going to lecture and doing the homework.

Additionally the solutions manual skips MAJOR steps and does not help understanding at all. I now do thermochemical calculations at work, and I just end up looking at my physics books for help.

THANKS FOR NOTHING ENGEL.

I am so glad I do not go to Univ of Washington.

BTW I got an A and a B in P-chem, and A's in physics so I am not just mad at my score and taking it out on the book.

Let me start by saying the ONLY way I would have passed Physical Chemistry using this book was by using the Solutions Manual. There was no way I would have been able to navigate through the convoluted explanations in the book without it. Having said that, even the explanations in the solutions manual are over-complicated and unclear.

Bottom Line: you'll need this solutions manual if your prof uses the book!

Almost every answer is wrong. The book is trash. Do not buy it! I've wasted too much time looking at this manual and am done.